Kingdom Asunder, the first part of The Bloody Crown Trilogy, is out today (purchase links below). It takes place in the Bane of Souls/Journey to Altmortis world, although as the cast is entirely new there's no advantage (beyond familiarity with the background of the world) to having read those.

It's been three years since Journey to Altmortis, my last 'serious' fantasy novel. The reason for the lengthy gap is simply that a trilogy is a lot harder to write than I'd anticipated, because you need to try and get everything right not just within one book, but within a book and the larger confines of the trilogy. It's more time-consuming to write one trilogy than three stand-alones (the upside is that if people like book one, then they're far more likely to get two and three than they might be to buy more stand-alones).

In the nearish future I plan to release a free abridged version, and a paperback edition.

There's a week one discounted price of $2.99 (60% of the $4.99 standard price) so do buy it now.

With just five days to go until the release of Kingdom Asunder, it's time for the juicy map reveal (below). The book (and trilogy) takes place in the Kingdom of Denland. I've noted the position of Highford (where Bane of Souls takes place). The doings of Journey to Altmortis are to the far north-west, across what the Kuhrisch call the Geldsee.

It's a fairly detailed but not exhaustive map. I've not included every single road and river, but enough to give a feel for the place. Some cities have already been mentioned (most obviously, Falchester, but also Penmere and Caer Seren) but most are entirely new. I've gone for a realistic naming approach so I imagine there are lots of places that have the same name in real life, but this is coincidental rather than deliberate.

The Welsh, for which I'm indebted to Tomas Forsey for his assistance, is used for Arthenigan, in the north. Note that Tomas suggested using Arthenigion (as per Ceredigion, I think) but I preferred the sound of Arthenigan. It also fit an English (or Dennish) dominance, as does the real-world Cardigan.

Various place names have lore influences, prefixes from the names of the gods, for example. I'm also indebted to Michael Kaye for his help making the coastlines rather more realistic.

The story itself revolves around the civil war between (and tempestuous relationships within) the Houses of Penmere and Esden. It's brimming with ruthless she-wolves, scheming traitors and grim knights. Amazon doesn't allow pre-order reviews but a few early ones are up on Goodreads.